______________ VALLEY STREAM _____________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
and MAY 18, 2023
HERALD
with a focus on:
looK INSIDe
Your Health Mental Health
Vol. 34 No. 21
Susan Cools runs for ToH clerk
James Dever takes 10
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MAY 18 - 24, 2023
$1.00
Incumbents sweep school board races tested for her seat, and will remain on the board. Voters also said yes to a balThe ballots have been count- lot proposition asking them to ed, and voters have not only authorize the use of $425,000 a p p r o v e d Va l l e y f ro m t h e c ap i t a l Stream school disreserve fund to comtrict budgets, but replete roofing elcted incumbent i m p rove m e n t s t o school board trustWilliam L. Buck and ees as well, in landRo b e r t C ab a n a ro slide victories. School and flooring District 24’s $37 at Brooklyn Avenue million budget School. passed with 371 At Valley Stream votes, 63 percent of District 13, the prothe ballots. The proposed budget — Cynthia Nuñez posed tax levy — the totaling $63.8 milmoney collected lion — passed with through proper ty 67 percent of the taxes — increased vote. The proposed by a little more than tax levy increases 1 percent. by less than 1 perIn the two concent. tested trustee races, In one of three incumbents won in contested trustee a c l e a n sw e e p. races there, incumIncumbent Cynthia bent Gerardo CavaNuñez was re-electliere successfully Armando Hernandez ed to her first full fended off challengterm, with 391 votes, er Charles Sanky for defeating challenger Rachel his seat. Cavaliere got a fourth Figurasmith with 134. term with 798 votes, compared Armando Hernandez was re- to 384 for Sanky. elected to a fourth term with Incumbent Patricia Farrell 382 votes, successfully fending also secured her fourth term, off challenger Cristina Arroyo. fending off challenger Andrew Melissa Herrera ran unconContinued on page 9
By JUAN lASSo jlasso@liherald.com
Courtesy Valley Stream District 13
FrANK CHIACHIere, CeNTer, who joined the District 13 Board of Education in 1993, is stepping down after 30 years of service to the district.
After 30 years on the school board, Chiachiere steps down By JUAN lASSo jlasso@liherald.com
When his son’s pre-K principal asked the crowd of parents if their children were lefthanded, Frank Chiachiere and his wife, who were in the crowd, raised their hands. They were the only hands in the air. Chiachiere was later pulled aside and asked by the principal if he had tried to teach his left-handed son to do things with his right hand. At first he didn’t know what to make of the question. Then the principal explained. Most classroom materials, from scissors to computers to one-arm desks, are designed for right-handed students, and so put their left-handed peers, like his son, at a disadvantage.
“It’s a right-handed world, and I thought, what would happen to this poor child once he gets into kindergarten?” Chiachiere said. He realized, thanks to that conversation, that the quality of a child’s education lies in the subtlest of details. “I wanted to make sure that there were a left-handed pair of scissors in the classroom,” Chiachiere said. So he decided to run for a seat on the Valley Stream District 13 Board of Education in 1993, and won. Over the following 30 years, he served another 12 times as trustee, and was board president in six of those terms. Chiachiere has helped vet and hire dozens of the district’s administrators, guiding his fellow trustees through the ins and outs of school district policy, and gauging the pulse Continued on page 15